GEM E825

What to drive when the trip is short and you´re too rich to walk.

News flash! The loopy two-seat, no-door coupe you see on these pages is the electric car of the future.

That's because the whispering charge-'em-up-at-home, electric-miracle substitute for the piston-powered passenger car that's been transporting us for the past hundred-and-some years is not gonna happen. Not in the next four years as the California Air Resources Board continues to demand, likely not in the next 10 years, maybe not ever (which goes out about 15 years, the extreme limit of any technologist's imagining).

So much for California dreamin'.

What we'll have instead of electric real cars, these technologists say, are battery-powered niche vehicles. Which brings us to this GEM E825. Its niche is "neighborhoods." In fact, a lot of folks call it a "NEV," short for "neighborhood electric vehicle."

Officially, though, it's a "Low Speed Vehicle," a category new in '98 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. LSVs are limited to a top speed of 25 mph and must have basic safety equipment including headlights, taillights, stop lights, turn signals, mirrors, seatbelts, side reflectors, a parking brake, a safety-glass windshield, and a VIN. They're exempt from crash testing, and they have no airbags. LSVs can be registered and licensed in at least 16 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada. NHTSA okays them for roads with speed limits of 35 or less mph, but states have the final say about where they can operate, if at all, and some states might confine them to slower roads.

The Big Two in NEVs are Global Electric MotorCars, LLC, of Fargo, North Dakota, maker of this GEM E825, and Montreal-based Bombardier, Inc., which manufactures everything from Ski-Doo snowmobiles to Learjet and Canadair aircraft.

Once you've whacked your way through this thicket of acronyms, a NEV looks a lot like a Lexus-class golf cart. Perhaps we should say Porsche-class. Whereas golf carts top out at only 12 to 15 mph, the test GEM did a scorching 26 mph at the track. Still, think golf cart and you won't be far wrong. The E825 is about five feet shorter than a Miata and nearly a foot narrower. Two of them would fit end to end in a typical parking place.

This front-driver's powertrain consists mostly of off-the-shelf components from the golf-cart industry. The 3.5-horsepower General Electric DC motor is geared directly to a Dana Spicer differential. Six Trojan 12-volt XH30 deep-cycle lead-acid batteries --two of them over the front wheels and four under the seat --feed 72 volts through a GE solid-state controller.

These standard parts are combined in a way that increases speed, compared with a golf cart, at the expense of range. Golf carts more commonly use six-volt batteries connected in series for a total of 36 volts. The GEM has "longer" gears --an 8.9:1 final drive compared with the 12.0:1 reduction typical for golf carts --and the GEM controller has unique software.

The GEM goes its own way in construction details, too. The frame consists of aluminum extrusions welded together. The overhead loops that serve as roll bars and roof supports are also aluminum extrusions bent to shape, powder-coated, and bolted to the frame. The fenders, the hood, and the cargo-carrying bustle on the back are fiberglass. Most of the other body parts are vacuum-formed ABS polycarbonate.

The rack-and-pinion steering gear and the hydraulic 6.3-inch-diameter drum brakes at all four corners are real car parts from Italy's minicar industry. In front is a swing-arm suspension made of extremely beefy cast ductile iron. A simple live axle is used in back. Both ends have coil-over shocks.

Let's see, at 25 mph, real cars are probably still in the parking lot. The GEM is more than competent at a flat-out pace most people don't think is up to driving speed. The steering feels right, the brakes are nicely linear with no squish in the pedal, the accelerator is unjerky. In keeping with its 980 pounds, the machine has a sturdy sense about it and a reasonably compliant ride. At 69.5 inches to the top of the door loops, the E825 is about minivan height. You sit up, on a chair-height bench, with a tower sort of view.